


A study in black and blue

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [72]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Fluff, University AU, kastle - Freeform, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 22:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10931076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: Prompt: Karen and Frank in university. An unlikely pair.





	A study in black and blue

**Author's Note:**

> Anon asked: "I'm imagining Karen at university, it's autumn and she's wearing cute sweaters with little wool skirts etc, she's persuaded to go to a pretty rough bar in town, and that's where she meets Him. He seems rough and ready, but when they start dating he's so kind & gentle with her, always encouraging her to finish assignments, walking her to lectures & meeting her from the library at night."

Josie raises her eyebrows when the door opens and this life size doll walks in.

Usually, the pretty girls that walk through the door are showing either too much boob, too much stomach, or too much leg, maybe all three at once. Or they’re pretty but don’t bother with anything more elaborate than jeans and a coat over a simple t-shirt.

This one has her shiny blond hair up on a neat ponytail, enough makeup to just make you wonder if she was born like this or her cheeks are really that shade of pink, a sweater with a swan wearing a crown, the sleeves rolled up and a skirt that stops a few inches above her knees, her caramel ankle boots rising a little bit above her ankle. The bag slung on her shoulder matches it.

“Hi”, she says to Josie. “Do you know where I can find Foggy? Or Matt?”

“Pool table”, Josie informs, nodding towards the back of the crowded bar.

“Ok, thanks”, she says with a polite smile, and Josie watches as she walks towards two of her regulars, and all the heads that also watch her go.

An hour later, she is coming out of the ladies room, looking at her phone, when she bumps into that one customer that Josie just can’t decide if she likes or not. Frank Castle. He’s polite, never caused any trouble, but the way he always scans the bar, as if assessing the place, or the suspicious black car that drops him or picks him up sometimes makes her wonder.

The blond doll gasps loudly at the drink that spills on her sweater and Castle is quick to apologise. Her big blue eyes are closed, and Josie recognizes the look of someone trying not to explode.

“It’s fine”, she says, short. “I wasn’t looking.”

Frank says something else, but she assures him again that “it’s ok”, turns back around and walks back into the ladies room, no doubt to try and wash the beer out of her sweater.

Josie watches as Castle stands there for a second or two, then turns around and walk to his table, where his friends are clueless to what just happened.

It’s five minutes before blondie comes out, her sweater on her hands, the tank top she was wearing under it showing off a lot of skin.

Now, Josie thinks, shaking her head, she looks like she fits in here.

“Listen”, she suddenly hears, and raises her head. Castle is standing in front of blondie again. “I feel bad for that. Is there something I can do? Like pay for the dry cleaners or something?”

She watches him with her blue eyes for a second, and then shakes her head.

“It was nothing, I washed it out.”

Frank nods.

“Ok. You sure?”

“Yep. Don’t worry.”

“Still”, he says, and looks towards Josie. “Their next round is on me, Josie.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s fine”, he says, reaching for his wallet. “I’ll feel better.”

He pays for all his drinks, plus the round he bought for blondie and Nelson and Murdock. Blondie watches him with a careful look.

“Again, I’m sorry about your sweater.”

And then he is calling on the three friends that were with him. Josie is not sad to see them leave. Frank has never caused trouble, but his friends, she can tell, are just waiting for a chance.

The blond woman - Karen, Josie finds out later - looks at her, questioning, and Josie shrugs, putting the three beers on the counter for her. With a polite smile, Karen picks them up and walks back towards her friends. At least those two Josie knows are nice.

.:.

Matt is punching the sandbag, and feels the sweat running down his brow.

“Left, Murdock, come on”, Frank says, holding the bag for him. He drives his left fist three times into the leather, feeling it move slightly. “Left, left, right.”

Frank is a good guy to train with. He knows they go to the same school, but they don’t take any of the same classes. The met at the gym, and it’s practically the only place they talk, their schedules being so different.

After they’re both done and Matt is unfolding his cane to leave, Frank catches up with him, offering his arm  to him as they both walk out.

“So”, he says after a small talk that Matt could just feel was leading somewhere specific. “You were at Josie’s last Friday, right?”

“Yeah. Why?” he asks, but he’s pretty sure ‘why’.

“There was this girl with you”. Bingo. “I spilled my drink on her.”

“Oh, that was you?” he asked, remembering Karen’s comments on how some stranger almost ruined her brand new Red Valentino sweater. “She was pissed.”

“She was, right? I knew it”, he says. “I offered to pay for dry cleaning, but she brushed me off.”

“Yeah, well. Karen is pretty independent. Not really the ‘letting guys do things for her’ type.”

Frank was silent for a second or two, and Matt could hear the cogs in his head. He had never seen Karen, of course, but just from the reactions she stirred everywhere she went, he could tell she was beautiful. Foggy told him only about a million times. Apparently, Frank was the latest one affected by her looks.

He couldn’t really say he was friends with Frank. He was a pretty good guy, from what he could tell, even if he was very closed off. Matt couldn’t blame him, he was, too. The way he carried himself, though, it was almost like a soldier. If he wasn’t so young, Matt would say he was a veteran, or something along these lines.

When Karen shows up for class a week from then, accompanied by Frank, Matt resists the urge to frown.

“Murdock”, Frank greets. “I’ll see you tonight?” he asks, referring to their boxing practice.

“Yeah, sure thing”, he replies, trying to act like him walking Karen to class was not a bit… weird.

“See you around, ma’am”, and then he leaves.

“Hey”, Karen greets, taking his arm, pulling him towards the stairs so they can get to class. “That was the guy, the one who spilled beer on me at Josie’s.”

“Frank was the guy?”

“Yeah. He bumped into me at the coffee shop. Bought my coffee for me. He keeps apologising.”

Matt smiles, thinking that her tone betrays a little excitement.

“Is he cool? Because that night, he looked like he was ready to shoot everyone at the bar if someone rubbed him wrong.“

Matt shrugs. “He’s nice enough. I only ever see him at the gym, he has a mean right hook.”

She hums and they walk into their classroom. He wants to ask more, measure the extent of Karen’s interest, but the professor arrives, loud and already spilling content and they’re rushing to open their books and get their notes and Foggy is throwing himself on the seat next to him, panting.

He’ll ask later.

.:.

“Zack, I swear to God”, Trish says, dumping her books on her desk at the school radio station. “if you ask me about Karen Page and Frank Castle again, I’m gonna scream.”

“But it’s just so juicy!” her friend says, holding the papers for the lunch broadcast to his chest. “Have you ever seen Frank Castle walking anyone to class? Have you ever seen him with a girl during the day at all?”

“Honestly, I didn’t know he existed until you started babbling about him.”

That’s a lie. She knew he existed. Has seen him more than once running with his shirt off really early in the morning, while she walked to krav maga. He looked good, Frank.

“Are they dating?” Zack asks, in spite of her warnings.

“I told you, I don’t know.”

But she knows. Has seen Karen giggle about him, has heard about the near Red Valentino disaster, had asked her about him, curious herself.

“No, we just have coffee sometimes”, her friend had said, two weeks ago. Now, she had a lot of juicy details about how good of a kisser he was. But she was not about to tell that to anyone.

“Is she still writing that story for us?”

“Yes, it’s due next week.”

“Well, can I ask her when she comes over? Maybe we could start a new social column, or something-”

“Zack, we’re not gonna write gossip about students or staff. This is an University, not high school. Take that idea out of your mind.”

But Zack didn’t really have to ask Karen anything. When Frank started walking her to her classes, hanging out waiting for her classes to finish and walking with his arm around her shoulder, greeting and saying good bye with kisses, the whole school seemed to be watching.

Never have they ever imagined someone as nice and bright as Karen would be dating brooding, scary and mysterious Frank Castle. But there they were.

Honestly, everybody half expected her to end up dating Matt Murdock or Foggy Nelson. But there she was, making Frank show his face outside during the day more and more often.

“No Frank today?” Trish asked when she ran into her on the way to Women and Gender Studies.

“No, he has a free period. Plus”, she said, with a move of her shoulder and a conspiratorial smile, dropping her voice. “He’s pretty tired.”

Trish looked at her and Karen waited.

“Are you just coming from his place?”

She nodded, looking smug and happy.

“Ok. Detour. We need to talk.”

Laughing, Karen let herself be pulled towards their regular coffee shop, where they got lattes and she heard all about Frank’s perfect body and amazing skills.

“Ugh, you bitch”, she said when Karen told her that Frank had, actually, no roommate, and she didn’t really have to keep her voice down.

That night, after Trish finished her shift at the paper and they walked to meet Jessica and Claire for wine, movies and popcorn, they all rolled their eyes when Frank showed up at the library door with his car, asking if they wanted a ride. They climbed in and then watched as Karen kissed him long and slow when he dropped them at Trish’s not so humble abode.

Eventually, they got into the elevator without her, laughing when Karen knocked on the door ten minutes later, no trace of lipstick on her lips.

.:.

When he graduated, she braced herself for an eventual break up.

Considering potential jobs for him, a new apartment, maybe even more interesting people, and her ever present pessimism when it came to relationships, there was always that little voice in the back of her mind telling her that this all could end very soon. She was still halfway through college, her graduation not coming anytime soon, and he was in the “real world”, now. “Real” women were bound to happen to him.

When, six months in, and he was asking her what time she was going to leave the library, so he could pick her up, asking her to come and check new apartments with him, still adjusting his schedule to hers, the voice started to quiet down.

He’s been living in his new apartment - the one he picked because she liked that it was near a park - for another six months, and he’s away for work for a week, when she opens one of his kitchen cabinets and finds a bag of the coffee she likes and he hates. The one from Starbucks, that he says is too weak and “too blended with unnecessary shit”, but she likes the smell of it and the taste of vanilla and the fact that when she drinks it with cream, it’s sweet and the taste lingers in her tongue. He bought it for her, even though it’s expensive and he hates it.

She’s missing him a lot, so she brews herself a cup, strips down to her underwear and sends him a picture of herself in her lingerie, lying in his bed, thanking him for her coffee.

He answers it three hours later, asking if she’s home (and she is, studying), asks for more pictures, tells her what to take off next and then she has phone sex for the first time.

The voice quiets down forever once he comes back, spends two hours making her see some stars on his ceiling, and then still manages to help her study, asking her questions from her index cards and, the next morning, wakes up at seven just to drive her to her 8 AM class, even if he didn’t have to.

Yes. Hush, now, voice.

.:.

Frank had known she was it for him for a while, now. Hadn’t said anything because it was, maybe, too soon, maybe she wasn’t ready, they were both very young, she looks the way she looks and is who she is, maybe she would realize that she’s very out of his league and want to dump him, something.  

Still, he knew.

He was sure when, after Shield promoted him and he started going on the field more often, which meant he had to travel a lot more, she went to pick him up at the airport once with a pitbull. A rescue.

“Happy birthday”, she had said, and he had, honest to God, forgotten it was his birthday.

He didn’t plan to, but he asked her to move in that night, after dinner.

“My place is bigger”, he reasoned when she looked at him with those big blue eyes on the other side of the dinner table. “You’re here all the time, my neighbors like you better than they like me.”

“Are you serious?” she asked, and he got insecure. Maybe she wanted to keep her place, she was a very self sufficient woman, Karen, valued her independence a lot.

He nodded, trying to look casual, but failing. He could feel it in his face.

But she smiled, took a deep breath and nodded, biting the inside of her lip and Frank loved her. He fucking loved her and he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop.


End file.
